The best of Bukowski's novels, stories, and poems, this collection reads like an autobiography, relating the extraordinary story of his life and offering a sometimes harrowing, invariably exhilarating reading experience. A must for this counterculture idol's legion of fans.

“It began as a mistake.” By middle age, Henry Chinaski has lost more than twelve years of his life to the U.S. Postal Service. In a world where his three true, bitter pleasures are women, booze, and racetrack betting, he somehow drags his hangover out of bed every dawn to lug waterlogged mailbags up mud-soaked mountains, outsmart vicious guard dogs, and pray to survive the day-to-day trials of sadistic bosses and certifiable coworkers. This classic 1971 novel—the one that catapulted its author to national fame—is the perfect introduction to the grimly hysterical world of legendary writer, poet, and Dirty Old Man Charles Bukowski and his fictional alter ego, Chinaski. About the Author Charles Bukowski is one of America’s best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived for fifty years. He published his first story in 1944, when he was twenty-four, and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp .

the gas line is leaking, the bird is gone from the cage, the skyline is dotted with vultures;Benny finally got off the stuff and Betty now has a jobas a waitress; andthe chimney sweep was quite delicate as hegiggled up through the soot.I walked miles through the city and recognizednothing as a giant claw ate at my stomach while the inside of my head felt airy as if I was about to go mad.it's not so much that nothing means anything but more that it keeps meaningnothing,there's no release, just gurus and self-appointed gods and hucksters.the more people say, the less there is to say.even the best books are dry sawdust.—from "fingernails; nostrils; shoelaces"